Video games, science fiction, and real-world technology are in an accelerated inspiration cycle and it shows no sign of slowing down. We see this trend creating tremendous opportunity for everyone in the ecosystem and invite you to join us to learn more, connect with your peers and make deals.

GamesBeat Summit continues to be one of the most prestigious insider events for the game industry. An invitation-only gathering, it brings together only senior business leaders – including publishers, developers, company execs, entertainment industry execs, and investors – to discuss and debate trends and strategies in a peer-to-peer setting.

Bo Daly is the co-founder and Chief Business Officer of Super Evil Megacorp, the developers of the world’s leading mobile esport, Vainglory. As CBO, Bo manages all aspects of Super Evil’s business and publishing operations. Vainglory boasts more than 12 million registered accounts and 1 billion matches played. Vainglory experienced a monumental first year in esports in 2016, awarding the largest prize pool ever for a mobile esport at $120,000 and generating 25,000+ concurrent views for its inaugural World Championship. The community has welcomed some of the largest esports franchises in the world to the Vainglory lineup, including Misfits, Echo Fox, Fnatic, NRG, Immortals and Rogue. Bo began his career at Rockstar Games, helping launch the hit Red Dead franchise. He left Rockstar to develop free-to-play MMOs at startup Gazillion Entertainment, where he served in a wide variety of roles, ranging from engineering to business development to operations.

Bill Young

Head of Strategic Partnerships & Sponsorships

Twitch

Violet Blue

Journalist & Advisor

Sometimes called the “man from the future” Tom Emrich is a leading voice in wearable technology committed to driving adoption and innovation in technology augmenting the human experience. He is an investor and partner at Super Ventures, the first fund and incubator dedicated to augmented reality and a community builder, founding We Are Wearables, the largest wearable tech community of its kind in the world with a reach of over 120,000 and chapters across North America. He is also co-producer of Augmented World Expo (AWE) the largest AR and VR conference now in California, Europe and Asia. Tom has been recognized as a global influencer for both wearable tech, augmented and virtual reality. His passion for this space is driven by his belief that wearable tech plays a critical role in our human evolution. You can follow his thoughts on Twitter @TomEmrich.

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Richard Hilleman has been making way too many games way too long. Over nearly 35 years, he has played a number of roles ranging from hardware assembly to CTO, with a 30 years of game producing and design credits in the middle. For the last year, Rich has been a part of the Amazon Game Studios where he is trying to make some of the future happen now.

Tim Sweeney

CEO

Epic Games

Sean Lee

Chief Corporate Development Officer

Wargaming

Jamil has 20 years of industry experience, and now leads games strategic partnerships at Google Play, to bring great games to Android platforms. His team’s support includes providing technical resources, business optimization, and editorial featuring. Through Google Play, Jamil also manages the curation of games portfolios for nascent platforms, currently for Daydream, Google’s high performance mobile VR platform.

Jamil is also an advisor to various startups, the writer of Tearing the Sky, a science fiction novel, and is currently working on a new writing project. Updates on the Android Developer Blog and Twitter @jmoledina.

Charles Hudson

Venture Partner

SoftTech VC

& Managing Partner

Precursor Ventures

Jamil Moledina

Games Strategic Lead

Google Play

Mr. Brandon Lee was appointed as Consul General of Canada in 2015 with accreditation for northern California and Hawaii.
Brandon Lee joined the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFATD) in 2004. He has a background leading management and innovation, and he has held several executive and management positions within the department. From 2007 to 2011, he oversaw reform activities to strengthen Canada’s international presence and became DFATD’s first Director of Innovation. From 2012 to 2014, Mr. Lee held senior positions at the World Trade Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross (both in Geneva), spearheading major organizational and international reform initiatives.
Previously, Mr. Lee worked in the private sector as a pioneer in online banking in North America and with large-scale telecommunications and IT management consulting firms.

Guy Bendov

CEO

Side-Kick

Jim Ying

Senior Advisor

CV Capital

Dean Takahashi is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist for more than 26 years, and he has covered games for 21 years. He has been at VentureBeat since 2008, and he organizes VentureBeat's GamesBeat and GamesBeat Summit conferences. Prior to VentureBeat, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Mike Minotti

Community Manager

GamesBeat

Dean Takahashi

Lead Writer

VentureBeat

Adam Gazzaley

Professor in Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry

UC San Francisco

Ted Price

CEO

Insomniac Games

Ravi Belwal is an accomplished and passionate Business Development Leader with expertise in Mobile Game Partnership Development, Sales & Marketing . Ravi is recognized for ability to build strong relationships with customers for top brands such as Samsung, Nokia and Microsoft. Ravi is highly resourceful with the ability to create successful outcomes in a complex global landscape and has a proven track record of translating plans into action with judgment and integrity.

Ravi identifies relevant global business partners and negotiates win-win deals; turns products into solutions for partners; Negotiates complex strategic mobile games development and distribution deals with global and Indie partners.

Ravi has an extensive experience in Influence Leadership. Ravi is Known for asking the right questions, encouraging teamwork and collaboration, managing expectations and delivering results; go-to person with strong “influencer” capabilities with leaders at every level.

Owen Mahoney was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of Nexon in March 2014.

Mr. Mahoney joined Nexon in 2010 and served as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer until 2014, responsible for managing the Company’s finances, global operations, investments and strategic alliances. Under his leadership, Nexon successfully completed its $1.2 billion initial public offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and formed strategic partnerships with high-profile developers and publishers around the world. Previously, Mr. Mahoney was Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Electronic Arts from 2000 to 2009, where he was responsible for worldwide mergers and acquisitions and business development, and led all acquisitions and equity investments. Prior to that, Mr. Mahoney held executive positions at online and software companies in the U.S. and Asia, including PointCast, Claris Japan and Radius. Mr. Mahoney graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and studied Japanese law and political science at the University of Tokyo graduate department of law.

Ernestine Fu

Co-Founder & Executive Chairman

Blackstorm Labs

Owen Mahoney

President & CEO

Nexon

Tej Tadi

Founder, CEO

MindMaze

Asi Burak is the CEO of Power Play and also the Chairman of the influential industry organization Games for Change (G4C), which produces the largest gaming event in NYC, the annual Games for Change Festival.

He has served as a strategic advisor to organizations like EON Productions (producer of the James Bond films), Tribeca Enterprises, Newsweek, and McCann Erickson, helping guide the strategic use of games and digital experiences to further brand engagement.

Prior to serving as G4C's President from 2010 to 2015, Asi co-founded and led Impact Games, the creators of PeaceMaker and Play the News (acquired by Hybrid Learning Systems in 2010).

James Zhang founded and grew Concept Art House from a small business of 5 employees to a company of 100+ employees world wide while maintaining steady revenue growth year after year. He successfully guided company to secure funding from North America, Europe and China. James led the company to acquisition and IPO in UK stock exchange in April, 2012, resulting in exponential positive returns for seed investors. Successfully re-acquired company in July, 2013.

In March, 2014, James successfully secured series A financing from one of China's leading mobile game companies to form Spellgun. A comprehensive publishing solution for bringing top mobile games from North America to China market and vice versa.

James is a regular contributor to international industry events and publications, such as ImagineFX, Fantasy Magazine, Inside Social Games, Chinajoy, Casual connect, Gamesbeat, Pocket Gamer, and Game Developer Conference.

Gary Whitta is an award-winning screenwriter best known as co-writer of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and screenwriter for the explosive post-apocalyptic thriller The Book of Eli starring Denzel Washington. He also co-wrote the Will Smith sci-fi adventure After Earth, and was writer and story consultant on Telltale Games' The Walking Dead, for which he was the co-recipient of a BAFTA award for Best Story – among many other credits including a healthy stint as Editor-in-Chief of PC Gamer magazine.

Tim Sweeney is founder and CEO of Epic Games, the company behind the Unreal Engine as well as games such as Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, Infinity Blade and Fortnite. Sweeney started Epic in 1991 with the release of its first shareware game, and then wrote much of the first-generation Unreal Engine. He has led the company through the eras of PC, console and mobile gaming and now looking forward into the emerging worlds of free to play, virtual reality and augmented reality. He received the Game Developers Choice Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017, and he received the Hall of Fame award from the DICE Awards in 2012.

Kathy Astromoff

VP Developer Success

Twitch

Ted Price is CEO and founder of Insomniac Games, Inc. - an independent game developer with offices in Burbank, CA and Durham, NC. Insomniac has created several high profile franchises for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One –Spyro the Dragon (PS1) , Ratchet and Clank (PS2, PS3 & PS4), Resistance (PS3) and Sunset Overdrive (Xbox One). In 2016 Insomniac has released five games for various platforms including Ratchet & Clank (PS4), Song of the Deep (PS4/Xbox One/PC), Edge of Nowhere (Oculus Rift), Feral Rites (Oculus Rift) and The Unspoken (Oculus Rift). The company is currently working on an original Spider-Man for the PlayStation 4 and on new content for The Unspoken. Insomniac’s console games have sold over 44 million units worldwide since the company’s inception in 1994. Insomniac has also won numerous local, state and national workplace awards for its unique culture. Price's responsibilities at Insomniac include directing the company's strategic planning and day-to-day business as well as contributing to its projects. Price is also the vice chairman of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. He graduated from Princeton University where he earned a B.A. in English.

Bob Gardner

Game Developer Evangelist

Intel

Guy Bendov is a co-founder and the CEO of SideKickVR, the leading cross-platform mobile VR game publisher. Dedicated to bringing widely accessible entertainment to mobile VR, SideKickVR fuels the market with a quality portfolio of successful brands and games adapted for all current mobile VR platforms. In partnership with market leaders such as Samsung, Oculus, Google and Merge, SideKickVR brings fun, immersive experiences to mobile VR headsets. Guy is an interactive entertainment serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience. Prior to SideKick, Guy founded Double Fusion, a leader in the in-game advertising space, Cellular Magic and Click! Online, a casual games studio.

Amy Jo Kim

Game Designer, Architect, Coach

Asra Rasheed is executive producer at Disney. She was previously CEO of RRKidz. RRKidz develops and publishes engaging, educational interactive content for today’s digital kids. Curated by Reading Rainbow’s LeVar Burton, RRKidz brings learning and skill based experiences to children within a safe social environment online and on handheld devices. Asra is an industry executive and accomplished entrepreneur. She possesses extensive experience in interactive media, entertainment, video games, online and offline business strategies and operations. Recently, Asra was President of Thumb Media Group, a content publishing platform for mobile and tablet devices.

Rob Reid

Author

After On

Laszlo Kishonti is the founder and CEO of AImotive. He founded the company in 2015 with the aim to revolutionize the automotive industry by humanizing the concept of self-driving cars. Before becoming an entrepreneur, he was managing a USD 3 billion fixed income hedge fund as Chief Investment Officer at K&H Fund Management. He founded his first company (Kishonti Kft) in 2003 with the aim to provide embedded chip performance analytics.

The company soon became the leading specialist in high-performance graphics, compute, automotive and computer vision solutions. In the summer of 2016, AImotive acquired the IP rights of Kishonti and took over all its employees. Today AImotive offers service and maintenance for Kishonti’s clients: the leaders of the semiconductor and consumer electronics market.

Amitt Mahajan

Managing Partner

Presence Capital

Laszlo Kishonti

Founder & CEO

AImotive

James is a seasoned technology entrepreneur and executive with 15 years of experience in the game industry. Before founding PlayFab, James started and ran PopCapAsia. Earlier in his career, James co-founded two game studios and worked on server technologies at Microsoft. James is an advisor to Code.org, where he served in 2013 as chief evangelist for the Hour of Code initiative that introduced more than 20 million students to computer science. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with a degree in computer science.

Rami Ismail

Cofounder Vlambeer

Margaret Wallace

Chief Executive Officer

Playmatics

Megan Gaiser

CEO

Principal, Contagious Creativity

Robin Hunicke is the Co-Founder of the independent game studio Funomena, which creates experimental games for Console, PC, VR & AR platforms (Luna, Woorld and Wattam) in the heart of downtown San Francisco. A game designer and producer by training, she has a background in Computer Science, Art and applied Game Studies. She has been designing, making and teaching about games for over 12 years (Journey, Boom Blox, MySims, TheSims2). Her passion is for making games that explore new feelings, ideas, and modes of interaction.

Robin is an outspoken evangelist for increasing the participation of women and under-represented minorities within the Arts, Games & Tech. She is an Associate Professor of the Arts Division at UC Santa Cruz, and Director of the Art, Games & Playable Media BA program. She supports a broad range of initiatives including: Amplifying New Voices,

the annual Experimental Gameplay Workshop, PlaySFMOMA, the Lexus Design Award, Google Made with Code​, Girls Make Games, and ​theCS For Al​l​ initiative.

As CEO of Spiral Media LTD and Principal of Contagious Creativity, Gaiser guides technology and entertainment companies to create meaning and money. She serves as a senior creative leader, strategist, director, and storyteller for inspired computing experience across games & VR/AR and films. As one of the first female CEO’s in the gaming industry, Gaiser spent the last 15 years experiencing the game industry as both an insider, and an outsider. This unique vantage point enabled her to not only sidestep the outdated habits of the game industry, but to capture the female market by creating the first intelligent game for girls via the Nancy Drew franchise. Gaiser gained a reputation for identifying and engaging unproven markets, inspiring collaboration and a commitment to the highest artistic and aesthetic qualities.

Zain founded Vungle because he believes there’s a better way for businesses to use mobile video to reach and acquire high-value consumers. A serial entrepreneur in the video space, Zain has been featured regularly in entrepreneurs-to-watch lists, including Forbes’ ’30 Under 30′ and ’35 Under 35.’ Prior to Vungle, Zain founded an online video learning platform and built a network of entertainment websites that became one of Google’s top 150 AdSense publishers. He is also a founding member of two of the top entrepreneurial societies in Europe. Zain holds a bachelor’s degree in business management from King’s College, London, a master’s degree in technology entrepreneurship from University College of London, and is a graduate of Singularity University.

Rami Ismail is one half of Dutch independent studio Vlambeer. He’s best known for his work on games as Nuclear Throne, Ridiculous Fishing, LUFTRAUSERS and Super Crate Box. Besides games, Rami creates independent game creation tools such as presskit() and distribute(). Rami continuously travels the world, and has dedicated a large part of his efforts towards encouraging and supporting game development in emergent territories.

John Hanke

Founder, CEO

Niantic, Inc.

John Underkoffler is founder and CEO of Oblong Industries, developer of the g-speak Spatial Operating Environment and the Mezzanine platform for immersive visual collaboration. Oblong’s technological and design trajectories build on fifteen years of foundational work at the MIT Media Lab, where John was responsible for innovations in real-time computer graphics systems, optical and electronic holography, large-scale visualization techniques, and the I/O Bulb and Luminous Room systems. He has been science advisor to films including ‘Minority Report’, ‘The Hulk’ (A. Lee), and ‘Iron Man’. John serves on the National Advisory Council of Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield Hills, MI, and on the Board of Directors of the E14 Fund in Cambridge, MA and Sequoyah School in Pasadena, CA. He is the recipient of the 2015 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award and holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ralph Osterhout

CEO

Osterhout Group

John Underkoffler

CEO

Oblong Industries

& Science Advisor Minority Report

Deanna Terzian is President of Curriculaworks and its sister company Tutorworks. For more than 15 years, she has led the creation of digital products and direct services that provide effective and fun learning experiences in challenging educational and operational environments. Tutorworks has served more than 20,000 struggling students in 700 schools using a motivational learning approach that blends digital learning and traditional academic tutoring. Through a five year partnership with the Office of Naval Research, Curriculaworks created Project Azriel, a first-person-shooter-zombie-themed-video-game-cognitive trainer designed to improve fluid intelligence.

Rod completed a new media course specialising in Video, Electronic Music and Computer Graphics Production at the Ontario College of Art and Design, before working as a music video director, motion graphics artist and film-maker. In 2004 Rod joined SimBin Ltd as a lead game designer, before moving to Electronic Arts as a games producer, leading the creation of urban and automotive culture elements for the Need for Speed franchise. In 2008 Rod was promoted to the position of Creative Director at EA collaborating with multiple development and marketing teams on Need for Speed, Real Racing and Speedhunters as well as developing programs in the automotive and motorsports industries. In 2015 Rod moved to SMS as the Chief Commercial Officer, working on developing the Project CARS franchise and brand.

Paul H. Müller

CTO & Co-Founder

Adjust

Rod Chong

C. Commercial Officer

Slightly Mad Studios

Justin Bailey

Founder & CEO

Fig

Akshay K. Khanna joined the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils/Prudential Center in July 2015 as the head of the business strategy department, where he is responsible for driving the organization’s strategic direction and new business initiatives and investments. This includes responsibilities in aligning the ticket sales, corporate partnerships, marketing, fan engagement, and customer acquisition functions of the teams, as well as advancing the growth of the combined Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils organizations.

Andrew Paradise

Founder & CEO

Skillz

Akshay Khanna

VP Strategy

Philadelphia 76ers

Jim Ying is an executive, advisor and investor in the games & mobile spaces. In his current role as Senior Advisor at CV Capital, he connects companies in games, mobile and tech ecosystems with investment and M&A opportunities in China.

Previously, Jim was Vice President of Game Publishing and Advisor at Tango, managing all facets of the games business and launching Tango’s $25 mil Global Games Fund.

Ellen Lyse Einarsen has been a part of the games industry since 2007, and started out casting and directing the voiceovers for Funcom's MMORPG "Age of Conan – Hyborian Adventures". By the time the game went live, she was Associate Producer, and went on to work on the game's first expansion pack; "The Road to Khitai" along with live maintenance. A screenwriter by trade, and project lead by experience, Ellen always keeps story and characters in focus. She has done extensive research on how to evoke empathy in games and was awarded a research fellow grant on the topic in 2010 by the Norwegian Film School.

Lisa is the Managing Partner and Founder of Niko Partners. Her responsibility includes client relations, research & analysis, business development, operations, and partnerships. Lisa founded Niko Partners in 2002 and has since honed her expertise on the Chinese and Southeast Asian online games industries that has benefitted Niko’s clients, companies that are global leaders in game publishing, game services, hardware, and investments. She is based in the US but travels to China regularly.

Ellen Lyse Einarsen

Game Lead

The Future Group AS

Gary Whitta

Screenwriter

Rogue One

Chris Roberts is one of the most recognized, well-respected, and successful game developers in the interactive entertainment industry. As a storyteller, game designer, game producer, and live-action director, Roberts skillfully combines vision with technical expertise to consistently create cutting edge, top-grossing and often revolutionary interactive entertainment products. A gaming wunderkind, Roberts sold his first computer game at the age of 14, and by the age of 20 Roberts had developed three #1 hits in his native U.K.: Match Day, Wiz Adore, and Stryker's Run. In 1987, Roberts joined Origin Systems, Inc. (“OSI”), which was acquired as a wholly owned subsidiary by Electronic Arts (“EA”) in 1992. Roberts was instrumental in OSI’s growth from a company with $4 million in annual revenues to a company with annual revenues of $50 million. Roberts’ first development project during his eight-year tenure with OSI was Times of Lore, which rose to #1 on Ingram's Best-Seller list in 1988. In 1990, Roberts developed Wing Commander, which set a new standard in PC games and evolved into a franchise series of game titles, all developed and produced by Roberts.

Kathy Astromoff is VP of Developer Success at Twitch, the world's leading social video platform and community for gamers. She has extensive experience in game developer relations and B2B marketing, including stints at Sega, AGEIA, and GDC parent UBM. Kathy has contributed to the IGDA in various roles, including Foundation trustee, board chair, and women's SIG contributor. She follows Cal football through thin and thin, and her favorite scotch is not too peaty.

Chris Roberts

Chairman & CEO

Roberts Space Industries

Mike Minotti is the community manager at GamesBeat, but he also handles plenty of writing duties. Unlike all of those fancy guys covering video games from San Francisco, Mike reports on the industry from the magical land of Ohio, all while adhering to VentureBeat’s ethics policy.

Richard Hilleman

Director, PMT

Amazon Game Studios

Bob is an ex-graphics engineer, indie games programmer, Android GDE (Google Developer Expert), and developer evangelist for Intel. He has hands-on experience in industries from backbone internet, through mobile silicon, to high end PC gaming; and has spoken at events varying in size from intimate Android gatherings to full auditoriums at GDC. He loves strategy games (and has played every game that could ever be described as an XCom clone); Metroidvanias (and is super psyched to get his hands on Chasm); and has played a tank in World of Warcraft from Vanilla to this day.

Greg Richardson is an investor, advisor and entrepreneur in the digital media space. He is chairman of Team Dignitas, an esports team. He is an active advisor for SuperCell, Gearbox Entertainment, the Philadelphia 76ers and Anorak Venture Partners and his active investments include DraftKings, Eonite, Team Dignitas and Maestro.io. Greg serves as the Chairman of Rumble Entertainment, a mobile games publisher he founded in 2011 and as the Chairman of Team Dignitas, a leading eSports team. Previously, Greg was an investor at Elevation Partners, a $1.8 billion private equity fund focused on digital media and served in a variety of senior executive roles within leading game companies including BioWare/Pandemic, Electronic Arts, Eidos Interactive and the 3DO Company.

American Journalist Violet Blue is an awarded author and a noted reporter on hacking and cybercrime, for outlets ranging from CBS News to CNET, as well as blogs and TV shows large and small. She is an oft-quoted pundit on digital privacy and safety, hacking culture, security, and digital crime who has featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and CNN. She writes the weekly Engadget column "Bad Password" and is the author of The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy. Blue is an Advisor to information security startup Peerlyst, and on the Advisory Board for privacy nonprofit Without My Consent. Find her on Twitter @violetblue.

Greg Richardson

Chairman

Team Dignitas

Named by Fortune as one of the top 10 influential women in games, Amy Jo Kim is a world-renowned social game designer, community architect & startup coach. Her design credits include Rock Band, The Sims, eBay, Netflix, Cover Fashion, indiegogo, nytimes.com, Ultima Online, Happify, Pley and numerous startups.

Through her coaching practice, Amy Jo helps entrepreneurs & innovators 10X their product/market fit with Game Thinking. She pioneered the idea of applying game design to digital services, and is well known for her 2000 book, Community Building on the Web. She holds a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of Washington (along with a BA in Experimental Psychology) and is an adjunct Game Design professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Thomas has been working in the video game industry for 15 years, focusing on brands and content. This led him not only to work on major brands (Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six, Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry) but also to be part of various new IP developments within core teams.

He decided to join the Watch Dogs brand for the long haul, bringing with him a long history and passion for hacking and the hacking culture, used daily to support both game development and brand efforts.

Thomas was a key leader of the Watch Dogs 2 brand efforts and acting as first line hacking consultant.

Adam Gazzaley, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor in Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry at the UCSF, and the Founder & Executive Director of Neuroscape. Dr. Gazzaley is co-founder and Chief Science Advisor of Akili Interactive Labs and JAZZ Venture Partners. He has filed multiple patents, authored over 125 scientific articles, and delivered over 525 invited presentations around the world. He recently co-authored “The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World”. He has received many awards, including the 2015 Society for Neuroscience – Science Educator Award.

Thomas Geffroyd

Brand Content Director

Ubisoft

Rob Reid is an author of speculative fiction based in New York City. His new novel After On (release date: August 1, 2017) concerns a diabolical social network (Phluttr) with the means and (perhaps?) the inclination to take full control of human society. His prior novel, Year Zero, was a New York Times bestseller, and depicts a vast alien civilization whose obsession with American pop music bankrupts the entire universe. A former venture capitalist, Rob was the founder, CEO, and later Chairman of Listen.com, which created & developed Rhapsody – the first online music service to secure full-catalog licenses from all of the major labels. Rhapsody created the unlimited streaming model later adopted by Spotify, Apple, and many others. Rob now works with tech startups as an investor, board member, and formal advisor. He was the founding outside board member of gaming megasite IGN, which went public and was later acquired by NewsCorp for $650 million. His current portfolio includes Kareo, Surf Air, Akili, Lyft, Poshmark, Brava, and China Rapid Finance. Rob majored in International Relations at Stanford, later earned an MBA Harvard Business School, and was also a Fulbright Scholar in Cairo, Egypt. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and his books are published by Random House’s Del Rey imprint.

Raheel Hasan is a co-founder and CEO of 1APP. Prior to founding 1APP, Raheel built multiple successful businesses and enterprise software products generating hundreds of millions in revenue from the top technology companies in the world. 1APP, founded four years ago, is completely changing the way mobile apps are used. Through its proprietary cloud-based mobile operating system (OneOS), 1APP makes apps instantly available on mobile devices. Now anyone with an audience has the power to interactively stream existing apps directly to their customers, leapfrogging the challenges of discovering and downloading from the app store. Through 1APP, apps can be instantly accessed, embedded, or shared anywhere through a simple web link.

Sean Lee is the Chief Corporate Development Officer at Wargaming, a leading global online game developer and publisher, where he has been since the beginning of 2013. He manages the key strategic initiatives of Wargaming including M&A, investments, strategic partnerships and key market expansion.
Prior to Wargaming, Sean was the Director of Business Development at Tencent’s headquarters in Shenzhen, China, and helped cover global business and investment opportunities across broader technology, with a focus on Internet and gaming.

Raheel Hasan

Cofounder & CEO

1APP

Amitt is managing partner of Presence Capital, a venture capital firm focused on VR and AR startups that bringing exceptional ways of communicating, working and playing to market. He was the founder/CTO of MyMiniLife (exited to Zynga) and the founder/CEO of Toro (exited to Google). While at Zynga he co-created the game FarmVille and was the CTO of Zynga Japan. Prior to his entrepreneurial work, Amitt was an engineer at Epic Games on the Unreal Engine and Gears of War. Amitt holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from University of Illinois - Urbana / Champaign and was listed on the Forbes 30 under 30 in 2012.

Kim Pallister is Director of Intel's Virtual Reality Center of Excellence. Leading the virtual reality (VR) project lab in Hillsboro, Ore., Kim and his team work to further the state of VR technology and to bring VR to mainstream audiences. In his current role, Kim forecasts the progress of VR and the ingredient technologies responsible for driving VR experiences. Assisting Intel’s original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners, from Microsoft to HTC and Oculus, Kim works closely with the underlying solutions making VR possible. Prior to rejoining Intel in 2007, Kim worked on Microsoft’s business development team conducting deals for MS Casual Games services, including MSN Games, Xbox Live Arcade and Windows Live Messenger. From 1998 to 2005, he served as games technical strategist at Intel.

James Gwertzman

Founder

PlayFab

Kim Pallister

Director

Intel Virtual Reality Center of Excellence

Ravi Belwal

Business Development Leader

Steve Peterson has been in the games industry for over 30 years, as an award-winning game designer (co-designer of the Champions RPG among others), a marketer (for Electronic Arts and other game companies), an executive in a variety of roles, a lecturer, marketing consultant, and journalist. Follow him on Twitter @20thLevel.

Bill Young is the Head of Strategic Partnerships & Sponsorships at Twitch where he is responsible for developing marketing and sales solutions for brands using Twitch to reach the esports audience. Bill is a games industry veteran with deep experience in business development, marketing, and sales with a focus on brand partnership. Prior to Twitch, Bill led partnerships and advertising at MaxPlay and was Managing Director of EA Ready where he developed innovative programs to market EA’s products closely with brands.

Steve Peterson

CEO & Founder

ImagiGames

Robin Hunicke

Co-Founder

Funomena

Lewis Ward is a Research Director in the Consumer Markets group based at IDC's headquarters in Framingham, Massachusetts. His area of coverage includes the worldwide evaluation and forecasting of opportunities, threats and trends in the home console, personal computer, handheld/mobile and virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) gaming industry. Software, hardware and services are examined in his advisory service, and placed in the context of the broader consumer entertainment market. A long-time enthusiast who developed a text-based game in BASIC on the Apple II in middle school, and who ruled the roost at Joust in the mid-80s, Mr. Ward brings more than two decades of game- and consumer entertainment-related experience to bear in his current role.

Ernestine Fu is co-founder and executive chairman of Blackstorm Labs, focused on building post-app store platforms to help users seamlessly access and share content outside of traditional app stores. At Blackstorm, Ernestine founded with Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten a new gaming company and platform, Rakuten Games; and also scaled the team that built the hit game EverWing for Facebook's Instant Games. Ernestine started her career as a venture capitalist and is a venture partner at Alsop Louie Partners, the venture capital firm behind gaming companies Twitch and Niantic. She received her BS, MS, and MBA from Stanford University.

Lewis Ward

Research Director, Consumer Markets

IDC

Margaret Wallace is Chief Executive Officer of Playmatics, award-winning creators of digital and real-world games, products and other interactive experiences. She was named one of Forbes “12 Women in Gaming to Watch” and, in 2014, Wallace was highlighted by Fortune as one of “10 Powerful Women in Video Games.“ An entrepreneur with a

strong focus on design thinking, innovation, healthcare, VR/AR and product commercialization, Margaret has built and expanded Playmatics across multiple sectors. For more information, visit the Playmatics website at www.playmatics.com.

Glen Schofield is Studio Head and Founder of Sledgehammer Games, developers of 2011's Action Game of the Year - Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and 2014’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. He has been creating video games for over 25 years. Prior to co-founding Sledgehammer Games, he was General Manager of EA's Visceral Games and creator of 2008's Action Game of the Year - Dead Space. While at EA, he also produced Return of the King, James Bond, and Knock-Out Kings. He has also directed game franchises such as Gex and Blood Omen.

Zain Jaffer

Founder

Vungle

Glen Schofield

Studio Head & Founder

Sledgehammer Games

Charles Hudson is a venture partner with SoftTech VC and managing partner of Precursor Ventures, a pre-seed venture capital firm that invests in B2B and B2C companies. He focuses on identifying investment opportunities in mobile infrastructure, mobile applications and marketplaces, and also supports SoftTech portfolio companies on business and corporate development matters. Prior to his investment work, Charles was the co-founder and CEO of Bionic Panda Games, an Android-focused mobile games startup based in San Francisco, and VP of business development for Serious Business until the company was acquired by Zynga in February 2010. He's held managing roles at Gaia Interactive and Google, where he focused on new partnership opportunities for early-stage products in the advertising, mobile and e-commerce markets. Charles holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.A. in economics and Spanish from Stanford University.

Michael Condrey is Studio Head and Founder of Sledgehammer Games, developers of 2011's Action Game of the Year - Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and 2014’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. He has been developing games for over 20 years. Prior to co-founding Sledgehammer Games, he was COO and Head of Development of EA’s Visceral Games, working on 2008's Action Game of the Year - Dead Space. Other noteworthy credits include EA’s James Bond series, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, and FIFA, among other titles.

Dr. Tej Tadi is the founder and CEO of MindMaze, the company pioneering a new operating system that captures brain activity upon intent, starting with applications in healthcare, gaming and social VR.

Under his guidance, MindMaze introduced MASK, the first of its kind neural virtual reality tech that translates electrical impulses from neurons and facial muscles into digital inputs for controlling on-screen characters that turn virtual reality from a technological experience into a human experience.

MindMaze has spent the last six years creating FDA-approved, clinically validated products that rehabilitate stroke victims and amputees and is already generating millions in revenue from them.

Dr. Tadi has a background in electronics engineering, virtual reality, and computer graphics through work at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. His research has led to important and highly visible scientific publications (Science) and awards (Pfizer Award for Neuroscience in 2009).

Micheal Condrey

Studio Head & Founder

Sledgehammer Games

As CEO, John leads Niantic, Inc., an innovative company dedicated to building “Real World” mobile gaming experiences that foster exploration, exercise and social interaction. Niantic has developed and released two games, Ingress and global phenomenon Pokemon GO. The company was originally founded as a start up within Google to explore the creation of new kinds of entertainment at the intersection of location, social, and emerging mobile devices. Niantic was spun out as an independent company in 2015 with backing from investors such as Google, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company.
Earlier in his career, John was a founder of Archetype Interactive, creators of one of the very first online massively multiplayer games, Meridian59, and then went on to co-found Keyhole, a company acquired by Google for the technology that lead to the creation of Google Earth. John was Vice President of Google's Geo division (overseeing projects including Maps and Street View) for seven years before founding Niantic.
John received a BA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

Tim Chang

Managing Director

Mayfield Fund

Tom Emrich

Partner

Super Ventures

Eliot Peper

Author, Editor

Scout

For more than 40 years Ralph Osterhout has delivered cutting-edge devices to global markets, developing over 2,000 products and hundreds of separate product lines for start-ups, Fortune 500s, and the U.S. government. Notably, he designed the PVS7 night vision goggles and heads-up displays in scuba masks. Ralph founded ODG in 1999 and began focusing on smartglasses in 2008. He is a pioneer in the headworn, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality fields. ODG’s compact devices contain more power than the average laptop and play movies with cinematic clarity, drop you inside immersive 3D interactive and virtual reality experiences, and reveal new worlds of invention and productivity via AR. A new mobile computing medium, they transform how we interact with and discover information and engage with people and objects in the world around us.

Tim is an experienced investor and global executive. He
has been twice named to the Forbes Midas list of Top Tech
Investors and received the Gamification Summit award for
Special Achievement. Tim’s venture capital experience includes
leading investments at Norwest Venture Partners and Gabriel
Venture Partners. His operational experience includes working
in product management and engineering across Asia for
Gateway, Inc., and General Motors. Tim holds an MBA with
honors from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and
an MS and BS in Electrical Engineering/System Engineering
from the University of Michigan. Tim is an accomplished
musician, who performs in three bands, as well as a body- and
consciousness-hacking enthusiast.

James Zhang

Founder & CEO

Concept Art House

Eliot Peper is the author of Cumulus, Neon Fever Dream, and the Uncommon Series. He's an editor at Scout and has helped build various technology businesses, survived dengue fever, translated Virgil's Aeneid from the original Latin, worked as an entrepreneur-in-residence at a venture capital firm, and explored the ancient Himalayan kingdom of Mustang. His books have been praised by the Verge, Popular Science, Businessweek, TechCrunch, io9, and Ars Technica, and he has been a speaker at places like Google, Qualcomm, and Future in Review.

Deanna Terzian

President

Curriculaworks,

Tutorworks

David Jagneaux

Games Editor

UploadVR

Brandon Lee

Consul General of Canada

David Jagneaux has been covering the video game and tech industries for over six years and has a Bachelor's Degree in Technical Communication. He serves as the Games Editor at UploadVR and you can read some of his other work at prominent industry outlets such as IGN, Polygon, Motherboard, VICE, and more. He lives in the Central Valley of Northern California with his wife and corgi. Twitter: @David_Jagneaux.

Paul is the CTO and a co-founder of adjust. He is in charge of

building and scaling adjust’s technologies.

Previously, Paul was the CTO and Managing Director for two companies rapidrabbit and Müller & Wulff GmbH.

The first of which he founded at the age of 23 and it proceeded to publish 25 apps and made 10M downloads.

Müller & Wulff GmbH was founded in 2010 and offered innovative IT services.

Becky Ann Hughes serves as Vice President and GM at Glu Mobile, a leader in free-to-play mobile gaming. She leads the GluPlay Studio, originator of the successful “DASH” series of mobile games including Diner DASH, Cooking DASH, and Gordon Ramsay DASH. Since joining the GluPlay team in 2010, Becky Ann has spearheaded tremendous growth of the studio and integration following its acquisition in 2014. Becky Ann has a keen understanding of all aspects related to product development including creative direction, product analytics, licensing and business development, engineering, and live operations.

Austin Grossman

Novelist,

Game Designer

Justin has served as the Fig's Chief Executive Officer since he founded the company in late 2014. Justin's work in video games includes experience funding and publishing a variety of premium, free-to-play, and mobile games, including Broken Age (formerly known as Double Fine Adventures), Massive Chalice, Hack 'n' Slash and Middle Manager of Justice. Justin previously served as the Chief Operating Officer of Double Fine Productions, Inc. where he established a new independent publishing label called “Double Fine Presents”.

Austin Grossman is a novelist and game designer. His novels include Soon I Will Be Invincible, YOU: a novel, and Crooked. Soon I Will Be Invincible was nominated for the 2007 John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize. His writing has also appeared in Granta, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. His game credits include Ultima Underworld 2, System Shock, Trespasser, Deus Ex, Epic Mickey, and Dishonored, which received the 2012 BAFTA award for Best Game. He is currently Director of Game Design and Interactive Storytelling at Magic Leap. He has an M.A. in Performance Studies from N.Y.U .and is A.B.D. in English Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.

Bo Daly

CBO & Co-Founder

Super Evil Megacorp

David Von Dorman

CEO

Gazillion

Andrew Paradise is the CEO and founder of Skillz, the worldwide leader in mobile eSports. Andrew is a serial entrepreneur with a successful track record. Prior to Skillz, Andrew founded AisleBuyer, which was sold to Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU) in April 2012 as well as Photrade, which was sold in 2009 to MPA Inc. He has also worked in venture capital and private equity investing for Fort Washington Capital Partners and The Watermill Group. Andrew learned to program at age seven by hacking a video game with a hex editor and later wrote his first game in Pascal. Andrew founded Skillz because he believes in making mobile games more fun for players while making game creation more lucrative for developers.

David Von Dorman has served as Gazillion's Chief Executive Officer since September 2015, and has been a member of the company Board of Directors since March 2014, where he first represented the investment interests of ROTH Capital Partners.

At Gazillion, Von Dorman oversees the strategic direction of the company - all key company partnerships and the day-to-day management of the executive team. Under his direction, Gazillion is expanding by diversifying onto new platforms, developing new games (licensed and original IP), and expanding into new territories to have a global footprint.

and more...

Intersection of sci-fi, games, and tech

Creating a culture of inspiration and creativity

Monetization: How to acquire and retain your user base

Deals: Follow the money

Esports and building community

Emerging markets for games

Platforms: Where to place your bets? VR, AR, and more

Diversity and the expanding ecosystem

2017 Topics

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